If
all goes as expected, somebody will take the pole for Sunday’s Geico 500 at Talladega with a speed of around 190 mph
(rules changes have made pole speeds at most tracks slightly slower than last
year). Just so you know, when this thing we now call the Monster Energy NASCAR
Cup Series began 68 years ago, the fastest pole speed at one of the original
series tracks was about half that.

But
of course that was on a track that was more than half SAND, so maybe pole-sitter GoberSosebee had reason to be proud of his fast time on the old
Daytona beach-road course. For the record, Sosebee
lead most of the race but ended up eighth behind winner Red Byron.

In this photo, Red Byron looks like a
guy who’d have lots of fans.

It’s
worth reflecting on that race winner, who also was the first champion of what
was initially called the Strictly Stock series. Red Byron was all NASCAR needed
in a star. He was a war hero, badly injured and still suffering from his
wounds. He had won the initial championship in NASCAR’s first series, the
Modifieds. I would say Byron had rugged good looks. He drove for a marquee car
owner, Atlanta’s Raymond Parks, who owned and serviced vending and gaming
machines and ran a moonshining empire on the side (or in the dark).

NASCAR
didn’t have a contingent of public relations and marketing people then to help
build followings for its drivers, but if there had been such a thing, Byron
would have been great material.

They just don’t make publicity photos
like this anymore.

Unfortunately,
the work would have come to naught. Byron’s health began to fail - the war
injury - and he drove just a handful of Grand National races in 1950 and ‘51,
retiring after that to manage sports car teams. He was doing that when he died
of a heart attack in 1960 at age 45.

It
might not have been the blow to NASCAR that Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s retirement
stands to be, but it had to hurt for NASCAR to lose Red Byron. (Car owner Parks
never ran for the championship again, either.)

Even
worse, the next year’s champion, Bill Rexford (a New Yorker without that much
name recognition at many of NASCAR’s tracks, anyway), also failed to defend his
championship and quickly faded from sight.

That’s Bill Rexford in #59 on the
outside of the three-wide battle at Darlington. Note the lack of any wall
between the pits and the track.

Fortunately,
NASCAR had other names winning races in 1949 and ‘50, like Fireball Roberts,
Lee Petty, Curtis Turner, the Flock brothers, and the guy who would top them
all to win the title in 1951, Herb Thomas.

Here’s Herb Thomas in his first
championship year.

Roberts,
Turner and the Flocks were already “big names,” at least regionally, when Bill
France started the Strictly Stock class. Petty and Thomas were getting noticed
in the new division. They represented different parts of the South, which was
good for drawing more fans.

As
long as the “hot shoe” at every short track in the Southeast (and elsewhere)
stood a chance of realizing his dream to compete in NASCAR, the star system
would continue to replenish itself nicely.

So
what’s happened? Why is the prospect of Alex Bowman (to use one oft-mentioned
name) replacing Junior so depressing to those who see it pushing NASCAR farther
and farther toward the exit from big-time sports (following Chase Elliott
replacing Jeff Gordon and Daniel Suarez taking Carl Edwards’ seat)?

I’ll
offer two reasons. The first is the “developmental driver” programs that move
relative unknowns into major visibility before they’ve had time to build the
fan base that Roberts, Turner or the Flocks would have had “back when.” If some
guy wins a couple of track championships and a couple of major short-track
races (Martinsville, Nashville, Pensacola or Oxford, Maine, just to name a
few), why should he stare at a closed door when it was opened for an unproven
but well-connected teenager who looks good and knows how to distribute a news
release?

The
second reason is that, in those days, Bill France might have feuded with a lot
of drivers from time to time, but he also promoted them and kept them - as
opposed to himself - in front of the fans and media before race day. Roberts,
Turner and the Flocks had more of an opportunity to attract fans because there
wasn’t as much competition for the attention.

OK, so Big Bill (to driver Ed Samples’
left) got in a lot of photos, but there was usually something really newsworthy
happening at the time.

In
the last 20 years, the period during which this writer watched NASCAR become
too enamored with its own standing, drivers had to play second fiddle to the
rule-change-of-the-week and to cars that minimized the difference a driver could
make.

There
are other reasons - don’t get me started on the charter system - but it’s
pretty plain that the talent pool to replace Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a lot
slimmer (in fan appeal, at least) than was the case in 1950, when somebody had
to step up and take Red Byron’s place.

I’m
not sure that’s something that can be fixed, either.

Frank’s
Odds ‘n’ Ends (all historical)

Ironically
for the timing of this story, Red Byron - according to one account - enjoyed
early career success running at a short track in Talladega.

There
might have been totally unrelated factors at work, but not having its champion
try to defend his title didn’t seem to hurt NASCAR early on. The Strictly
Stock/Grand National Division (now Monster) went from eight races in 1949 to 17
in 1950 and 41 in 1951. BTW, while Darlington and Martinsville are the only
tracks that ran that year and remain on the Monster/Cup schedule, there were other tracks in Charlotte, Atlanta,
Daytona and Phoenix, as well as a track in the Los Angeles area (Carrell’s
Speedway in Gardena, not that far from Fontana) and one in Pennsylvania
(Langhorne) that wasn’t that far from Pocono. A lot of fans are still in the
same places.

That
1951 season had something else we don’t have today: seven different makes of
car scored victories. Think maybe if we had more than Chevy, Ford and Toyota,
fans of those other makes might also spend some of their cash with NASCAR?

It was OK to put your money on
Studebaker or Hudson to win, just don’t bet on those automakers’ survival./

(Editor’s Note: Ironically, there were
no wins for either Chevy or Ford in 1951. The winning makes were Studebaker,
Hudson, Mercury, Oldsmobile, Plymouth and a single win each for Chrysler and
Nash. Of all those makes, only Chrysler survives today)

Bad
ideas know no timeframe. In 1952, no doubt flush with the success of the
Southern 500, Darlington held a spring race, but it was only 100 miles long and
paid about the minimum purse for those days. Only 24 cars showed up, versus 66
for the 500 in September. The race wasn’t held the next year. (A later spring
race began for the Convertible Series and then became a Grand National event .
. . until NASCAR decided a not-too-glitzy track in a small South Carolina town
didn’t need two races.)

Information and images for this story
came from lots of online sources, but as usual, Racing-Reference.info and
Wikipedia were the most heavily used. I’m glad both are readily available.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Race Fans Forever are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of Race Fans Forever. Race Fans Forever is not affiliated with NASCAR or any other motorsports sanctioning body in any form..